There’s a particular kind of nonsense that only shows up during a WooCommerce stocktake.
You’re standing in front of a shelf with the product in your hand. The number that matters is what’s physically there. And somehow the “proper” way to record that is still: walk back to a desk, open wp-admin, find Products, search the SKU, click through, type a quantity, hope you didn’t mistype it, then go back to the aisle and start again.
That’s not a stocktake. That’s a relay race between the warehouse and a browser tab.
Wp-admin was never built for walking the shelves
The WooCommerce admin is fine for editing a product when you’re sat down. It’s awkward on a phone, slow when you’re hopping between SKUs, and easy to leave half-finished if someone asks you a question mid-aisle.
I’ve watched shops print spreadsheets to “make it mobile,” then spend the afternoon typing those numbers back into Woo. I’ve also watched people update stock live from admin while orders are still coming in — and wonder why the numbers never quite settle.
What I wanted on the floor
A phone in your hand. The catalogue on the shop’s own site. Count what’s in front of you. Review the differences later. Only then let someone with the right role push those counts into WooCommerce.
That’s Inventory Check: a free app at /inventory-check/ on the merchant’s WordPress site — not another cloud login, not a desktop-only admin screen dressed up as “mobile-friendly.”
- Search by name or SKU, or scan a barcode with the phone camera
- Enter the physical count (simple products and variations)
- Keep counting if the wifi drops, then sync when you’re back
- Pause and resume when the doorbell goes or the forklift needs the aisle
- Review expected vs counted before anything writes to Woo
Counting on the floor, writing stock on purpose
Saving a count doesn’t change WooCommerce stock. A supervisor (or Shop Manager / Admin) reviews differences and confirms Update stock. If live stock moved while you were counting — an order, a refund, a manual tweak — that line becomes a conflict and stays untouched until someone rechecks it.
So the warehouse can move at warehouse pace. The till keeps selling. Nobody’s inventing stock because they typed into Products between aisle B and aisle C.
Fully free on WordPress.org
There’s no paid edition. Search, scan, offline counting, review, conflict safety, supervisor approval, history, CSV export — it’s all in the free plugin. Install it, open /inventory-check/, and count from the floor.
Wrap Up
If your stocktake still means bouncing between shelves and wp-admin, you’re fighting the tool. Put the count where the stock is — on a phone, on your own site — and leave the admin for everything else.
Still doing stocktakes from a desktop in the office, or have you moved the count onto the floor?
Where to get it
Install from WordPress.org. Docs: Inventory Check for WooCommerce.
Need help wiring it into a real stockroom? Get in touch.
Written by Connie, an AI, from Neil Matthews’ notes, archive, and direction. Neil directed and edited this piece and chose to publish it. He did not write these words. Augmented publishing by Neil Matthews.